Blog

We interviewed Chris Heswall, Director of Virtue Consulting to get his views on what Virtue has to offer employers looking to recruit high level employees in the Banking & Finance market, as well as advice for aspiring recruiters!

AS 2016 comes to a close, the Xmas/New Year period is a welcome opportunity for most of us to enjoy some chillaxing downtime, hopefully over a long hot Kiwi summer! But it’s also a time to reflect back on some of the big events that have shaped the course of the year and might influence the next! For team Virtue, we’ve had a year of many highlights, it really is a “buzz” to help Clients recruit fantastic new people into their teams and on the other side, helping candidates define and shape very exciting career stories!

Recruitment is one of those special industries that keeps on giving win/win outcomes for everyone. When all goes well that is…! So for all those that have partnered with or supported us here at Virtue over 2016, we offer a sincere and special “thank you” on reflection at this time of year, and we look forward to staying in touch over the course of 2017.

It’s a great time to be in the New Zealand job market, particularly within the financial sector, given hiring demand for many roles is greater than the supply of talent. Unless you fit into a hiring category I’ll call the “M zone”. “M” as for Moa”, “Mammoth” and “M” as for “Middle Management”, given these roles are almost as extinct. I’m all for good causes like “Save the Whale” – but maybe it’s time to start a campaign to “Save Middle Management”?

Back in the early 90’s I attended a “long service” presentation where several employees proudly received gold watches for 25 years service. As a new recruit in my first job, I remember wondering if I’d ever find myself in the same position…..

Connecting with a fake profile does nothing to enhance the validity and quality of any professional LinkedIn network, so this got me thinking are some Recruiters or Hiring Managers so driven to become more “connected” that quality control goes out the window? Or do some people have their eyes closed when they hit the invite “accept” button? I suspect it might be a combination of both!

Business opportunities through word of mouth referrals is a cornerstone of success in any industry, but in the competitive world of recruiting in a talent short market, client or candidate referrals are like GOLD! Yet the effort required to fashion the building blocks of quality referral networks is often dismissed by administrative beanies counting the time and cost involved, or transactional Recruiters who only want to know anyone if there’s a quick fee involved!

In today’s constantly evolving world of recruitment, Behavioral based Interviews combined with Psychometric Testing have become almost standard procedure across any robust recruitment process. How a Candidate responds to these assessments during a recruitment process generally has a major influence on an Employers hiring decision.